I hate to admit it, but when I first heard that there was another sushi restaurant opening in Portland I wondered why. The Old Port is now overstocked with places to get raw fish: the perennial favorite Benkay, the popular sophomore Yosaku, the centrally placed Sapporo, and Fuji for the Exchange St. crowd who want a maki roll after getting some new socks at Club 21. That’s more than enough for the peninsula, right?

Right. But Ginza Town is not on the peninsula; it’s on outer Forest Avenue. While it might seem strange to open a restaurant of this type in that land of tan-o-ramas and strip malls, if you go to any other major city in America you’ll see that the popularity of Japanese food is not limited to just the tourist zones. In San Francisco, for example, another great port city, small sushi joints are just about everywhere, from the posh Marina to the more humble Mission district. In Ginza Town’s case the question remains: Is this opening an unfortunate example of how crushing rents downtown are pushing quality restaurants away from walk-by traffic, or an example of the positive spread of more exotic cuisine into areas that need cultural infusions the most?

Surely, Ginza Town’s location is more of a curse than a blessing for partners Duc Bui (also the sushi chef) and Luan Phong Luu. After years in Boston, and a few at Sapporo, their move away from downtown has put them in a spot with limited parking (even less than Benkay’s packed parking lot — when the restaurant’s practically empty) and no walk-by traffic. The storefront, with its gleaming orange sign, fits in well amongst the doldrums of the strip malls. The challenge of opening a quality restaurant out there has begun: As with any place that has to compromise convenience for its customers, Ginza Town must offer something unique that will make its surroundings null and void.

Something like gregarious service, unusually large pieces of sashimi, a wooden boat for a plate, free honeydew melon for dessert, or secret off-the-menu suggestions. Or all of them. It’s pretty clear that the owners are well aware of the shortcomings of their location, and are trying hard to make patrons forget about it. Rice-paper shades cover up the lower halves of the windows, allowing light to pass through but limiting the view to the tops of the trees across the busy street. With a little imagination, you can pretend you’re somewhere a little more tranquil.

The menu has 193 individual choices on it. Some are combination plates, many are sashimi and maki roll options, but it still made ordering somewhat of a shot in the dark, even with three of us choosing. That’s why it helped when our server nudged me after I ordered the Beef Tataki (thinly sliced rare beef with a Ponzu sauce), and told me to order it with rare tuna instead of beef. What arrived was seared and sliced tuna (sliced against the grain, giving the slices a beautiful segmented look) piled over shredded onion and zucchini. The Ponzu sauce, traditionally a combination of rice vinegar or lemon juice, soy sauce, mirin, kombu (seaweed), and bonito flakes, must have had chiles in it. My mouth was on fire as I finished the plate.

The rubbery crunch of the Seaweed Salad, marinated in sesame oil dressing, was a table favorite, but the edges of the Salmon Gyoza (pan-fried dumplings) were dry and crusty rather than soft and chewy. This was the meal’s only culinary miscue, however; the only service misstep was the omission of the miso soup that is supposed to come with the entrees.

But we think we discovered the root of that problem: Our server, when asked what exactly was in a particular sauce, blinked and said self-deprecatingly, "Man, I don’t know. I just came in to help out my friend!"

His earlier menu suggestion put him at about even par in our estimation.

The Soba Noodles, thin buckwheat noodles in a broth with a side of shrimp tempura, was simple and satisfying. Unagi Donburi, broiled eel with kabayaki (soy sauce, mirin, and sugar) and sesame seeds over sushi rice, is traditionally eaten in the hottest parts of the year, as the flesh is rich in calcium, protein, and Vitamins A and E. That’s good, because I needed all the stamina I could get while tackling my boat of sushi and sashimi.

It’s not so much that there were a large number of pieces on the two-foot long wooden boat that served as my plate. I ordered a combination plate: only one California roll, one roll of the day (Yellowtail), three pieces of tuna sashimi, three pieces of salmon, and one piece of shrimp. The maki rolls were easy; the sashimi pieces were ungodly large. Each one took three medium-sized bites to finish, and in all my days of sushi eating I have never seen that much raw fish expecting to be eaten solo. Sashimi lovers, rejoice. If those pieces are examples of what they serve regularly at Ginza Town, you’ll be in heaven. But if you’re into sashimi just to cleanse the palate, you might want to order by the piece during happy hour, when sashimi is half off.

If you don’t feel like driving into the Old Port.

Andy King can be reached at dinnerwithandy@yahoo.com